Page 61 of Keeping it Casual
“Chattering away does sound like Lucy,” Jeremy says. He’s still wearing a puzzled frown.
“Anyway, nice to see you both.” She gives a wave as she heads off toward the cupcake stall.
“So, apparently, our children have secret lives,” Jeremy says.
Suspicion swells in my mind. I turn to face Jeremy.
“That walkie-talkie you found in Lucy’s room? It’s not blue with a red antenna, is it?”
Jeremy’s eyebrows fly up. “How did you know that?”
“Because it belongs to Lachie.”
His eyebrows threaten to leave his face completely and go into orbit.
“Why does Lucy have Lachie’s walkie-talkie?” he asks.
“I’m not sure. Maybe we should ask the culprits themselves,” I say just as Lucy and Lachie come back to us from the popcorn stall. Lachie’s managing to move quite quickly on his crutches now, despite the unevenness of the grass surface. Lucy’s carrying two bags of brightly colored popcorn. I don’t want to know the amount of artificial coloring our kids are about to ingest. Besides, I’ve got other things on my mind right now.
“We’ve just been talking to your English teacher,” I say to Lachie.
Something in my tone must alert him because he stops, looking hesitant.
My gaze flits between the two of them. Which of them will break first?
“Neither of you two thought to mention you’re reading buddies?”
Lucy immediately has a guilty look, while Lachie decides now is a good time to work out how to adjust the height of his crutches, avoiding eye contact as he fiddles away with the levers.
“Lachie,” I growl. “Start talking. Now.”
“Can I plead the fifth?” Lachie asks.
“Sure, plead away. But as we don’t live in America, you’re not covered by their constitution, so it’s not going to do you much good.”
“What do you want me to talk about? About why I didn’t tell you Lucy was my reading buddy?”
“Yes. That. And while you’re talking, you can explain how Lucy came to be in possession of one of your walkie-talkies.” I cross my arms over my chest and narrow my eyes at him.
“It’s no big deal.” Lachie shrugs in a way that I know means he’s trying to convince me it’s not a big deal. His nonchalant shrug is definitely harder to pull off with crutches. “At our first reading session, Lucy told me her dad was gay and wanted a boyfriend.”
Jeremy lets out an indignant squeak. “Way to make me sound desperate, Luce.”
I keep my eyes on my son. “And then what happened?”
Lachie gives me an innocent look. “I thought after what happened with Robbie, you deserved some fun. So I gave her one of my walkie-talkies, and we kind of coordinated it so you two could bump into each other.”
I blink slowly, taking in the information, before looking at Jeremy.
He’s looking as shell-shocked as I feel, with wide eyes and mouth slightly open.
“The park…” he says. “And the ice cream store.”
The library that Lachie desperately needed to join. The swimming pool when he decided he needed last-minute practice for swimming sports.
How we mysteriously ran out of toilet paper that time, forcing me to make an urgent run to the corner shop just as Jeremy also happened to be there. I knew we couldn’t have gone through toilet paper that fast, dammit!
All those times early on when it seemed like I just turned around and Jeremy was there.
